Does my bottom look big in this?

Beep beep beep beep.

Beep beep beep beep.

Beep beep beep beep.


The alarm clock would not stop; I woke up, groggy, woozy and semi-conscious. Blame it on insufficient sleep, due to me sleeping at 6am, due to the addictive nature of Sim Tower.

Yes, that 1994 tower development game by Maxis.

I drank a cup of water, stirred a cup of instant coffee, brushed my teeth, changed into some decent clothes and checked my email. Just before I left for the market, I turned around and caught a reflected image of my back on the wardrobe’s mirror.

Gasp. GASP. A pair of surprises caught me off guard, waking me up better than any instant coffee possibly could.

I noted that my bottom looked big in that particular pair of trousers.

Then I realised I had somehow stumbled upon a frequently used comic strip joke- “does my bottom look big in this?” I never thought this issue would exist in the real world, my world.

The moment passed, and I regained my composure. “That was an anomaly. I’ll let it pass, and leave it as it is.”

I could not leave it as it is. Later in the evening, I tried to figure out the source for the optical illusion earlier in the day. I think it’s the cut of the rear pockets and slack in the fabric that combined to give an appearance of vastness to the hindquarters. It had appeared flat and wide, like a slab of lard. A slab, not a lump. Perhaps my Magical Inflatable Thingy (Saffron, 2004) and its paraphernalia are not sufficiently voluminous to take up the slack in the trousers’ fabric. Whatever.


Sources:
Saffron (2004), untitled (6th October 2004), from "27th & 6th".
http://saffraan.blogspot.com/2004/10/are-you-girl-why-girls-dont-play-games.html